Brent Warnken asked:
Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election with appeals to the middle class- specifically in changing economic policy and achieving a better health care system- with promises of a change in foreign policy and, most importantly, with a very clear, calculated attack on the college football bowl game system. The Orange Bowl, and many more like it around this great nation, hang in the balance while the power shifts to what might be a hostile administration to the current system in NCAA football.
Even though the President of the United States has zero authority over a private industry like the BCS, and there's no precedent for taking on NCAA issues at the executive level of the federal government, people who like to purchase tickets at http://www.stubhub.com/orange-bowl-tickets/ might want to know how their next president would like to change the college football postseason. For many college football fans who get their game tickets at http://www.stubhub.com/, this change will be a welcomed one.
On the eve of the election ESPN sportscaster/personality Chris Berman arranged for a short interview with both presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, during the halftime show of the Monday Night Football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Washington Redskins. Besides being almost completely composed of fluff and artificial ratings spikes, the interviews did actually illustrate some interesting pieces of political maneuvering. Berman asked both candidates what they would do, if they could do just one thing, to help improve sports in America. McCain said he'd like to go after steroids, promoting a harder crackdown on illegal substance use in sports. Obama called for a college football playoff system to determine a legitimate national champion. Said Obama:
"I think it is about time that we had playoffs in college football. I'm fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other. Get eight teams -- the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff. Decide on a national champion."
Calling out the BCS title system is not nearly as popular with beltway politicians as is calling out steroid use. Let's remember that steroids have had more than their day in court. Baseball's drug scandal was dragged out before a committee of the House of Representatives as recently as a year ago. Ending steroid usage in sports, specifically the popular American ones like baseball, is a pretty safe topic with your average sports fan. Everybody hates steroids. As a politician who has assembled a career based on tackling corruption, John McCain recognized the pitch immediately and hit it solidly for a single.
However, as McCain chose to go with the tried and true, the sports issue that Congress has already made its business, Barack Obama won voters by saying something that registers with fans who usually aren't lucky enough to see their favorite college team by securing some Orange Bowl tickets. He stretched Berman's gimme single into a double by using a currently relevant topic (the college football season is winding down and bowl games are the talk of the sports world, whereas the pro baseball season ended a few weeks ago), as well as by connecting the issue to two of his chief talking points- a broad call for change and a populist message about ending established monopolies of power.
Barack Obama, never one to pass up a good political opportunity and one who no doubt saw the polling on this issue, chose to take on the fat cats college football, much like he frequently blasts the fat cats of Wall Street. Polling data on the college football bowl game system are frequent, and they always deliver the same results, though the numbers vary slightly from instance to instance. Overwhelmingly the public wants to change the current system of bowls and subjective rankings indicators. How to best change the current system is a subject of debate, but in survey after survey roughly 70% of sports fans demand some kind of playoff system like there is with most every other pro or college sports championship. Obama stuck to his message, kept with the theme of "change" and rode it all the way to the White House less than 24 hours later.
Will President Obama eliminate bowls like the Orange Bowl? Will he insure the implementation of a playoff series to create a legitimate national champion in college football? No. He has no authority to do so, implied or otherwise. So if you're worried about some drastic, executive branch-ordered changes in NCAA football anytime soon, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Change might be coming to Washington, but it's not coming to Canton anytime soon.
That said, the President's opinion on a matter like this is a powerful one, and if the movement to change the BCS system is in need of an ally, a voice for their cause, even a leader at the top, there is no better advocate than the President of the United States. If sports fans rebel against the special interests making the big bucks off the bowl game system, they know they have a friend, at least in principle, in the most powerful man in the world.
plumbing101
Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election with appeals to the middle class- specifically in changing economic policy and achieving a better health care system- with promises of a change in foreign policy and, most importantly, with a very clear, calculated attack on the college football bowl game system. The Orange Bowl, and many more like it around this great nation, hang in the balance while the power shifts to what might be a hostile administration to the current system in NCAA football.
Even though the President of the United States has zero authority over a private industry like the BCS, and there's no precedent for taking on NCAA issues at the executive level of the federal government, people who like to purchase tickets at http://www.stubhub.com/orange-bowl-tickets/ might want to know how their next president would like to change the college football postseason. For many college football fans who get their game tickets at http://www.stubhub.com/, this change will be a welcomed one.
On the eve of the election ESPN sportscaster/personality Chris Berman arranged for a short interview with both presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, during the halftime show of the Monday Night Football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Washington Redskins. Besides being almost completely composed of fluff and artificial ratings spikes, the interviews did actually illustrate some interesting pieces of political maneuvering. Berman asked both candidates what they would do, if they could do just one thing, to help improve sports in America. McCain said he'd like to go after steroids, promoting a harder crackdown on illegal substance use in sports. Obama called for a college football playoff system to determine a legitimate national champion. Said Obama:
"I think it is about time that we had playoffs in college football. I'm fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other. Get eight teams -- the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff. Decide on a national champion."
Calling out the BCS title system is not nearly as popular with beltway politicians as is calling out steroid use. Let's remember that steroids have had more than their day in court. Baseball's drug scandal was dragged out before a committee of the House of Representatives as recently as a year ago. Ending steroid usage in sports, specifically the popular American ones like baseball, is a pretty safe topic with your average sports fan. Everybody hates steroids. As a politician who has assembled a career based on tackling corruption, John McCain recognized the pitch immediately and hit it solidly for a single.
However, as McCain chose to go with the tried and true, the sports issue that Congress has already made its business, Barack Obama won voters by saying something that registers with fans who usually aren't lucky enough to see their favorite college team by securing some Orange Bowl tickets. He stretched Berman's gimme single into a double by using a currently relevant topic (the college football season is winding down and bowl games are the talk of the sports world, whereas the pro baseball season ended a few weeks ago), as well as by connecting the issue to two of his chief talking points- a broad call for change and a populist message about ending established monopolies of power.
Barack Obama, never one to pass up a good political opportunity and one who no doubt saw the polling on this issue, chose to take on the fat cats college football, much like he frequently blasts the fat cats of Wall Street. Polling data on the college football bowl game system are frequent, and they always deliver the same results, though the numbers vary slightly from instance to instance. Overwhelmingly the public wants to change the current system of bowls and subjective rankings indicators. How to best change the current system is a subject of debate, but in survey after survey roughly 70% of sports fans demand some kind of playoff system like there is with most every other pro or college sports championship. Obama stuck to his message, kept with the theme of "change" and rode it all the way to the White House less than 24 hours later.
Will President Obama eliminate bowls like the Orange Bowl? Will he insure the implementation of a playoff series to create a legitimate national champion in college football? No. He has no authority to do so, implied or otherwise. So if you're worried about some drastic, executive branch-ordered changes in NCAA football anytime soon, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Change might be coming to Washington, but it's not coming to Canton anytime soon.
That said, the President's opinion on a matter like this is a powerful one, and if the movement to change the BCS system is in need of an ally, a voice for their cause, even a leader at the top, there is no better advocate than the President of the United States. If sports fans rebel against the special interests making the big bucks off the bowl game system, they know they have a friend, at least in principle, in the most powerful man in the world.
plumbing101
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